Trend Originators - MMA Weekly and Sherdog are the top two sites. I think MMA Weekly is tops mainly because their reports and rumored match ups just about always accurate. Sherdog's influence can't be denied although I tend to dislike most of their staff's commentaries. Their Fight Finder database is essential though.

Influencers: Full Contact Fighter and Fight Network are both large and usually have good info, but they rarely have scoops and I like them better for recaps. FCF's newspaper has good interviews and recaps but the print version obviously is limited in terms of fresh stories. Their website isn't as competitive or indepth as the Originators. Fight Network has also jumped the gun too many times trying to get a scoop only to have their info turn out to be wrong. So I don't trust their news as much as the Originators. Inside Fighting, Fight Opinion, Bloody Elbow (still think Mad Squabbles was a better blog name), Five Ounces of Pain, Whaledog, and China Combat would round out the sites that I also consider to be influencers. The majority of their news seems to be second hand but they're always up to date and I enjoy their commentary. Whaledog might have to be taken off due to the lack of posts. China Combat doesn't have many posts but it's pretty much the only place I know of that has insights into the development of MMA in China.

Adopters: UFC Junkie and UFC Mania are probably the two biggest adopters that jump out at me. Although Junkie has tried to transition and upgrade to an Influencer both sites are still mostly filled with links to other sites who have broken the news. I don't find either site's commentary to be very interesting or thought provoking but they're good for finding a collection of UFC links all in one spot. MMA California's regional approach is refreshing but none of the writers seem particularly knowledgeable of the sport. Or if they are they don't convey it well in their posts.

Followers: The Underground and Sherdog forums.

Alot of fighters have their myspace page where they will announce their next fight...  or they or someone from their team will leak it to a website.

I actually think UFCjunkie has been announcing quite a few matchups, but they are a purely UFC blog... not really MMA.

Sherdog has got to be considered the biggest MMA news outlet in America.  They have the most traffic, they cover events worldwide, and then they got that affiliation with ESPN.  That puts them on top.  Also, I think their "war with Dana White" is positively comical.

I think the mainstream outlets are important for the sport, but they aren't particularly insightful.

Influencers: Five Ounces of Pain, Bloody Elbow, FightOpinion

Dunno about the rest :-p

And the site is fixed ... the sidebar now works on Internet explorer. So it turns out 'if it ain't broke, you should break it and then when it's fixed it will work even better!'

Past that it may not be your content but your marketing that's the problem. Marketing is the biggest reason why most sites aren't getting the hits they deserve. God knows if I spent more time marketing than i did writing, I'd have 5 times as many hits, but half as much content.

I'd rather just do content, because my site is just a masturbatory indulgence at the moment. Although I do admit I enjoy it more when people are watching ;-)